Adobe AIR Development

[melleb]

Ahoy, intrepid developers!

If I might be so bold as to momentarily distract you from your compiling, I have a favour to ask. (Yeah, she just got here and she's already asking for favours…)

We’ve been working on a project here at the Stately BlackBerry Manor, and I would love to get your input. We're building what we’ve colloquially referred to as “DevTube”, i.e. a video channel of developer-centric content. So I figured it would be a good idea to actually ask you what you'd like to see on it.

Would love to know what types/lengths of content you'd be interested in, what you'd like to learn about, who you'd like to meet, what kinds of things make you stop watching and go back to Reddit…

Some general categories we're thinking of so far:

• Developers! Folks who are building cool apps, their companies, processes, products, etc.
• Technical product demos. How does new stuff being launched make your development life easier, better, faster, etc.
• Screencasts. How to do…?
• The business of apps. Lots of you are building businesses out there. What are the best practices, success stories, etc.
• Meet the team. Lots of you know lots of us. At least online. Get to know Dev Relations and other relevant RIM folk and who can help you get stuff done.
• Event coverage. Keynotes, interviews, etc. You're seeing this stuff on the dev blog and whatnot, just want to have it in one place.

I can't guarantee we'll be able to implement everything you throw out there, but geek-friendly and fluff-free is my ultimate goal.

Much obliged,

Melle

Cross-posted to: Java, Web and WebWorks, Native, and Cascades.

[jtegen]

Screencasts would be nice. ANE, BB10 with AIR, FTE install.

For many who the business side is a strange beast, it might help some (but would have to take into account local laws) to cover business things (e.g. LLC, s-corp, marketing 101, SWOT/market analysis, etc.)

It would be good also to keep these up to date. Like most content on the web, it get out date pretty quickly and since video production takes more time to produce, it would be a waste if it is not updated as the technology or tools change.

[melleb]

Yup, regional accuracy and evergreen/maintaining relevance will definitely be challenges. Will need to bake checks into the production process so that every so often we look at the content and ask if it should still be there, what updates might it need, etc.

Good call.

Melle

[pyth]

Tutorials in general. Getting started, HowTo-Install, HowTo-use this tool, that framework or those SDK functionalities.

As references, you could go to gotoandlearn.com or raywenderlich.com. I love gotoandlearn, but I'd like to see updates more often. And raywenderlich has lots of updates, so that it's worth using its rss feed, but unfortunately no video content. Oh, and please don't diregard those with slow connections

Plus, for the quality, 'keep it short and simple'. Regarding that, I was very disappointed when I visited the Getting-Started-Session for NDK in Amsterdam, it felt like - here's the link, and now we're going to waste an hour of your life advertising - please don't do that

[melleb]

Yup, that's precisely the idea of "fluff-free". Basically, I suspect my smoke test will be whether or not I understand the content end to end. If I do, unless it's business-centric, pretty sure it's not going to meet devs' needs. And for marketing/advertising, we've got plenty of channels for that already. They've got some stuff in the works that I think will be a great litmus test of whether or not we're on the right track.

[UberschallSamsara]

I like @jtegen's suggestions on covering the business side (incorporation issues etc.) and would like to additionally suggest doing a primer on things like EULA's, privacy policies, do's and don'ts for collecting user identifiable data, securing user data etc. for indy developers.  Over the past year or so I've seen a few news stories about how web and mobile users are growing more concerned (with good reason) with how they are being tracked, and it looks like laws could be passed requiring website owners and app developers to meet minimum user data security requirements, fully disclose how user data is used, etc. (e.g. perhaps app developers who deliberately or accidentally ship user info to a server even if for legitimate business purposes could get sued by ambulance chasing lawyers).  I'm sure RIM legal has plenty of expertise in this area.